2. How to get started, not Why is the theme of the customer discussion. A shift from the spring due to notable F500 investments such as News Corp acquisition of Dow Jones (parent of the Wall Street Journal) and Microsoft offering $300mm for just 5% of Facebook. Agreement that there is something to this notion of Community Building or Social Networking. Starting inside the enterprise to harness collective wisdom of employees, with a goalof improved innovation, is compelling. Existing business processes and right mix of staff are inhibitors to taking advantage. Is the benefit in early adoption or fast-following?!

3. Not much of a wow factor in related tools: blogs, wikis, feeds etc as judged to be the basics but not project justifiers.

Here's a step-by-step process to create your own QEDwiki application using a StrikeIron Service.

Before you begin, you will need to register on the IBM.com site to have an ID to use QEDwiki. To register, simply go to https://www.ibm.com/account/profile/us?page=reg By having an ID on the IBM.com web site you can also access other premium content such as developerWorks tutorials and alphaWorks downloads.To use StrikeIron services within QEDwiki, you will also need to register an account on the StrikeIron Web Site athttp://www.strikeiron.com/Register.aspx . (Remember to check your email to fully activate your StrikeIron account.)

Now that you've registered on both the IBM and StrikeIron web sites, you can now create a simple situational application on the QEDwiki mashup maker utilizing StrikeIron Services by doing the following steps:

Once you enter your IBM ID and agree to the license, you will see the QEDwiki welcome page.

Optional step: You can click on the links on the left menu to learn more about using QEDwiki. Good places to start are to select "Introduction" and view the "How To" subtopics, such as How to Create a Page, How to Create Data, etc. Also you should view the Tutorials located in the "AssemblersGuide" section.

Select "Create a Page" (and remember to name the page a WikiWord!) So type in a page name like JohnsTestPage1234 ... There is a restriction to always use unique page names (not used by others) because these pages can be shared with your friends. Also choose the "Two_Row" Page type.

Once you have created a new QEDwiki page, get into the "Assemble" mode by selecting the "Assemble" tab on the upper right corner.

Then from the Widget palette on the left side, type "SearchForm" and press "Go". You will see a "Search Form Widget" appear on the palette.

Drag and drop the "SearchForm" widget into the first row within the QEDwiki page. You will get a pop-up and you can put "Enter Phone Number" on the entry and click OK.

At this point, it would help if you do a Page Refresh on your browser to update the contents of the page. (to avoid a small bug that will be fixed soon.) Then make sure you go back into "Assemble" mode.

OK, now it's time to find a StrikeIron service to use within this QEDwiki application. On the Widget palette, choose "AlphaWorks MashupHub" as the source and type "strikeiron" on your Search bar. Press "Go". You will then see the following palette which displays multiple StrikeIron functions that you can use:

Drag and drop the "ReversePhoneBusinessIntel" icon (the one with a question mark) onto the second row within the QEDwiki page. You will see a pop-up panel for this widget requesting you to enter a valid StrikeIron ID and Password in order to use the StrikeIron Service. Then select the "Next" button on the upper right corner of the pop-up panel. (Do not press the "OK" button just yet.)

On the next panel, it asks for you to enter a phone number. Instead of having a static number, we want to use the SearchForm to allow users to enter phone numbers in the entry field. We want the ReversePhoneBusinessIntel widget to consume the contents of the SearchForm entry field. So select the "paper and pencil" icon on the far right of the entry field.

On the next panel, select the "SearchForm" widget and the "search" topic, and press "OK".

The resulting "editing properties" panel should look like this:

Then press "OK", and select the "View" tab because you have now finished the assembly of your QEDwiki situational app.

For this application, you can enter business phone numbers and perform a "reverse phone number lookup". For new accounts, StrikeIron will provide you with 25 free hits. So if you enter a business phone number such as 914-499-1900, this is what the final application looks like:

So with similar steps, you can create new QEDwiki applications which use other StrikeIron services or which use data services from other providers. You can add map widgets or weather forecast widgets if you want. The page you just created is a wiki page after all, so you can add text to the page by simply selecting the "Page" tab and choosing either the WYSIWYG Editor or Text Editor. Your situational application web page can then be shared with anyone you choose.

4. MySpace planning to customize ads to members based upon their profiles and interactions.

Aside from the on-going flood of Web 2.0 activity, what might be the connection of these initiatives?Pay the Customer First and the accelerating roll-out of Mobile Search aka mobile advertising.

We have IBM and Yahoo offering capabilities to customers that once cost hundreds of dollars per user in license fees. Now they're giving this capability away, up front, in order to attract targeted audiencesor communities (plus put a burr in the Microsoft saddle).

Google and MySpace demonstrate how they, and others, intend to take advantage of the communitiesformed when the customer is paid first with software (word processing and spreadsheets) or services (search).

What would it be like if television commercials understood and could serve ads to the specific individuals who watch particular programs. A game in our family during commercials is to guess who the sponsor thinks is watching the particular program based upon the type of commercials. Either broadcast tv will figure this out or we'll probably migrate to watching television on our HD flat panel fed by our internet connection.

Have you ever heard one of the Yogi-ism of advertising, 'I know that 50% of my advertising works; I'm just not sure which 50%.' This is to going to get better, meaning more relevant, for everyone. cperrien

I was in the Apple Store on Park Avenue last Wednesday, the day of the announcement of Apple's partnership with Deutsche Telekom. This plus the $1.4 for 1 Euro exchange rate drew at least 1,000 people into this largest of Apple retail stores. A sweeping view of the store gives one the impression that there is more of a trade show going on than sales being transacted. People are talking, testing, laughing, calling their friends over, surfing the web. There is little product in sight and the sales assistants mainly provide info and advice on products. I've never had a big-box type of sales pitch in any Apple Store. This reminds me of my friend JP's obsevation (his blog is confusedofcalcutta.com) that first we have Conversation, then Relationship, then Transaction. BTW, the 10 check-out registers at this Apple Store were occupied, with a long queue, for the entire hour that I was there.

BTW2 - Apple stock at $149.00 today; up from $86 on the day in February when the phone was announced. 10 shares purchased at announcement would have paid, with the profits, for the iPhone and a lunch to celebrate.

BTW3 - my retail clients ask about Web 2.0. I tell them that I've been in Apple Stores in Durham (NC), San Francisco, San Antonio, Chicago, and New York. The experience is the same: conversation, relationship, transaction and meshes perfectly with the experience of iTunes and the devices themselves. There is presently no better model. cperrien